Don Singleton

Monday, January 19, 2009

Finally Bush Commutes Sentences for Ramos and Compean

FOXNews.com reported On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the controversial sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.

I don't know why he did not pardon them, but I am glad he at least did this.

The imprisonment of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean had sparked outcry from critics who said the men were just doing their jobs and were punished too harshly. They had been sentenced to 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively. Their sentences will now expire on March 20 of this year.

Why wait two more months?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Read it and weep

ReadTheStimulus.org reported $850 Billion, 334 pages, and counting... somebody needs to read The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009

And they have links to the bill text, both in PDF and TXT, and the committee report, both in PDF and TXT.

Oh, My God... Libby Wright reported Those were the words of House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) when he saw the incoming Obama Administration and Democratic Leadership’s proposal that was released yesterday to “stimulate” the economy. Boehner went on to say that, “I just can’t tell you how shocked I am at what we’re seeing. You know it’s clear that they’re moving on this path along the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.”

Yid with a lid blogged Remember ACORN? They were the group that President-elect Obama used to work with. During the presidential campaign their fraudulent voter registration drives were news almost every day. ACORN was famous for registering dead people, the same people in multiple counties, and even giving Mickey Mouse the right to vote. The Democrats are rewarding ACORN for their fine Illegal work by throwing some cash their way in the Obama stimulus plan: Looks like the infamous ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) that was caught up in voter fraud in 2008 will be in the running to get some funding (pages 72-73 of the report.) The bill provides for $10 million for the SHOP program. The funding will provide competively awarded grants to national and regional nonprofit housing organizations to develop or rehabilitate low-income housing.

Giving $10 million to a group that should be prosecuted with RICO is bad, but I bet there are worse things in the bill. Read it and weep.

Stop TARP

NYTimes.com reported At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money. bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money. “Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”

In other words the Government was stupid enough to give us this money, but we have no intention of using it for what they hoped we would do, i.e. make more loans.

.... many banks that have received bailout money so far are reluctant to lend, worrying that if new loans go bad, they will be in worse shape if the economy deteriorates.

I've got a clue for them. Only loan it to people with good credit.

... A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority.

Which is the reason they were given the money.

An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future.

They should be prosecuted for taking the money under false pretenses.

Speaking at the FBR Capital Markets conference in New York in December, Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele, said there were no immediate plans to do much with the $154 million it received from the Treasury.

Then give it back.

“With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”

That is not the reason you were given the money.

.... The Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., said in October that banks should “deploy, not hoard” the money to build confidence and increase lending. He added: “We expect all participating banks to continue to strengthen their efforts to help struggling homeowners who can afford their homes avoid foreclosure.”

Then why didn't he make sure Congress included penalties in the law if banks hoarded the money, and why was Congress not smart enough to insist on those provisions.

But a Congressional oversight panel reported on Jan. 9 that it found no evidence the bailout program had been used to prevent foreclosures, raising questions about whether the Treasury has complied with the law’s requirement that it develop a “plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners.”

Arrest Paulson, and some of the bank CEOs, and let the courts decide.

The report concluded that the Treasury’s top priority seemed to be to “stabilize financial markets” by simply giving healthy banks more money and letting them decide how best to use it. The report also said it was not clear how giving billions to banks “advances both the goal of financial stability and the well-being of taxpayers, including homeowners threatened by foreclosure, people losing their jobs, and families unable to pay their credit cards.”

Just giving free money to anyone is stupid.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Iran president: 'Not feasible' for Israel to live

Yahoo! News reported The Iranian president said the fighting [in Gaza] showed Israel's continued existence in the region is "not feasible."

My interpretation is that Hamas just cannot be reasoned with, and must be destroyed. Israel wants peace, they just want the rockets to stop.

Let some Guantanamo Bay detainees live in U.S.????

Los Angeles Times reported Human rights advocates are urging the incoming Obama administration to allow some detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to resettle as U.S. residents as part of any plan to close the controversial facility.

And what do we do when they then attack America, but this time as a U.S. Resident?

Taking such a step would go beyond plans outlined so far to close the prison and transfer detainees to other countries or to military prisons on the U.S. mainland. But allowing a small number -- perhaps only two or three -- to live freely in the U.S.

What indication do we have that they want to live freely here, rather than just killing as many as they can?

could help persuade other countries to accept some of them as well.

No one wants them. At least some of them have said they want us to kill them, so that they can die a martyr. Why not accomodate them and let Allah sort it out.

"If we want European and other countries to feel comfortable taking at least some of the prisoners off American hands, the U.S. will have to show it is OK by taking some itself," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.

Or maybe we should consider what it is about these people that no one wants them, even their home country.

Bombs more precious than children

With this sort of Hamas indoctrination of children there is no hope for peace in the Middle East

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed

International Herald Tribune reported If the acid attacks against Shamsia and 14 other students and teachers, which carried the tell-tale marks of the Taliban, were meant to terrorize the girls into staying home, they appear to have failed completely. Today, nearly all of the wounded girls are back at the Mirwais School for Girls, including Shamsia, whose face was so badly burnt that she had to be sent abroad for treatment. Perhaps even more remarkable, nearly every other female student in this deeply conservative community has returned as well - about 1,300 in all.

I wish them well.

"My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed," Shamsia, 17, said in a moment after class.

Compare this, where parents love their children so much that they want them to get an education, even if it means risking their lives, to the parents in Gaza, who send their children to a school where they are taught at a very young age to be willing to become suicide bombers in order to kill Jews.

Shamsia's mother, like nearly all of the adult women in the area, is unable to read or write. "The people who did this to me don't want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things."

That is precisely what they want. They consider girls the property of their father, before they are married, and property of their husband, once they are married, in an arranged marriage when they are very young.

In the five years since the Mirwais School for Girls was built here by the Japanese government, it appears to have sparked something of a social revolution. Even as the Taliban tighten their noose around Kandahar, the girls flock to the school each morning. Many of them walk more than three kilometers, or two miles, from their mud-brick houses up in the hills.

How many kids in the US walk 2 miles to school. And they don't have to worry about people spraying acid in the faces of the girls.

The girls burst through the school's walled compound, many of them flinging off head-to-toe garments, bounding, cheering and laughing in ways that are inconceivable outside - for females of any age. In Mirwais's muddy byways, there is no regular electricity, no running water, no paved streets. Women are rarely seen, and only then while clad in burqas that make their bodies shapeless and their faces invisible.

Saudi cleric says It's an injustice to NOT marry girls aged 10

Mail Online reported Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric has told followers it is permissible for ten-year-old girls to marry and anyone who think they are too young are doing the youngsters 'an injustice'.

Since the father is going to make the decision who to marry his daughter off to I can see why he might think it was an injustice to the father, but why to the child?

Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, the country's grand mufti, said: 'It is wrong to say it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger.

After all, Prophet Muhammad married Aisha (Aysha) when she was six, and took her to bed when she was nine

'A female who is ten or 12 is marriageable and those who think she's too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,' he said during a Monday lecture.

Does this apply to wife 1, 2, 3, and 4?

Al Sheikh's comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Life or death. She does not know which to pick.

Lebanese girl wants to direct movies, or commit mass murder. It does not matter which. Los Angeles Times reported Hiba Qassir dreams of making movies. She's ambitious and precocious enough. At 18, she's taught herself how to edit video and sound on a computer, and has her sights set on directing gripping social and psychological dramas.

A reasonable choice.

But if the movie business doesn't work out, that's OK. She has other dreams: perhaps to become a cop or a pilot.

Those are OK too.

Or maybe a suicide bomber.

Not a very bright choice.

"Martyrdom is the shortest way to heaven,

Or at least what Satan thinks is heaven, although we call it Hell.

and the history of martyrdom is not like any history,"

No it ends in pieces going everywhere.

Hiba says. "It made victory. We wouldn't have achieved victory without these martyrdoms."

You think you have achieved victory? Try living in peace with your neighbors, and helping each other, rather than trying to kill each other.

ay Bishop horrified at earlier inaugural prayers

GNYTimes.com reported President-elect Barack Obama has asked V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, to deliver the invocation at an inaugural event on Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.... Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.” “I am very clear,” he said, “that this will not be a Christian prayer,

Because your lifestyle is not really consistent with the Bible.

and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that.

Or if he does quote scripture, ye will probably avoid Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13

The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.” Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to “the God of our many understandings,”

Does the Episcopal Church pray to “the God of our many understandings”?

language that he said he learned from the 12-step program he attended for his alcohol addiction.

European totally does not understand Gaza

WSJ.com reported If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help.

I agree with that completely. And if they want some country to support them, let it be a Muslim country.

This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

Babies are not lured into the world by our money. The Muslim countries have such a high birth rate because women have no rights, they are the property of their husbands, and he wants many children to use as suicide bombers or to arm and send to kill Jews and other infidels.

If we make this urgently needed reform, then by at least 2025 many boys in Gaza -- like in Algeria -- would enter puberty as only sons. They would be able to look forward to a more secure future in a less violent society.

Boy are you confused.

If the West prefers calm around Gaza even before 2025, it may consider offering immigration to those young Palestinians only born because of the West's well-meant but cruelly misguided aid.

That would be foolish. The west already has enough of them. Let them go to one of the many Islamic countries where they can live in the culture they are used to.

In the decades to come, North America and Europe will have to take in tens of millions of immigrants anyway to slow the aging of their populations.

Just encourage more children to be born from people already used to a western culture, than importing children from another culture who will just want to change your culture to what they are familiar with.

If, say, 200,000 of them are taken from the 360,000 boys coming of age in Gaza in the next 15 years, that would be a negligible move for the big democracies but a quantum leap for peace in the Near East.

And a quantum leap toward the Islamization of Europe.

Many of Gaza's young -- like in much of the Muslim world -- dream of leaving anyway. Who would not want to get out of that strip of land but the international NGOs and social workers whose careers depend on perpetuating Gaza's misery?

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Prosecution of Bush officials

AFP reported US President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday he was not ruling out possible prosecution for abuses committed under the George Bush administration, saying no one "is above the law".

Before he leaves office Bush should grant pardons just in case.

"We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth," Obama said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC's This Week program when asked about alleged abuses under Bush.

And if you cut back on them, to appease the rabid left, and an attack much worse than 9/11 happens, do you really want it on your record that you prosecuted the previous administration for doing what you did not, keep the country safe.

... But Obama, who takes office on January 20, added that he wanted his administration to focus on tackling problems moving forward, rather than reviewing policies under his predecessor.

The Bush administration issued executive orders blocking access to the previous administrations records, to protect Clinton. Now the Dems want to prosecute Bush. When Obama is run out of town on a rail for allowing an attack much greater than 9/11, does he want to be prosecuted for it?

"My instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing," he said.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Whole Hamas battalions wiped out

Ynetnews reported Is Hamas falling apart?

Hopefully.

A senior IDF officer estimated Saturday that roughly 300 Hamas men have been killed since the army launched its ground incursion in the Gaza Strip. The military official said IDF troops were able to wipe out whole battalions belonging to the Gaza terror group.

Good job, IDF.

"Hundreds of people were killed in the various combat sectors," the officer said. "Some Hamas companies and battalions were simply wiped out. We also see cases of desertions and unauthorized leaves, while some terror activists are scared to undertake moves that would jeopardize them vis-à-vis IDF troops."

The cowards are hiding behind civilians, rather than confronting the IDF and claiming their 72 virgins. Maybe they are not that sure they have 72 virgins waiting for them.

Earlier Saturday, the IDF killed Hamas' rocket chief in the Gaza City area, Amir Mansi. The senior officer said that shortly before his death Mansi clashed with his subordinates, who refused to come out of their hideouts.

I don't blame them.

The rocket chief was left with no choice but to launch mortar shells himself,

He did not have to fire on Israel at all.

and was killed after being identified by the army.

International plan hatched to bring back Fatah

Times Online reported A plan to create a new foothold in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority and to bring in international monitors was being drawn up by diplomats yesterday as a UN ceasefire call was dismissed by both sides.

Hamas has killed most of the Fatah people in Gaza before. What makes them think these will not be killed too, and what Fatah people are stupid enough to test them.

The plan would allow a return of the authority, led by the secular Fatah faction, to the territory 18 months after it was expelled by the Islamist Hamas. Diplomats are considering taking a triangle at the southern end of Gaza, including the Rafah crossing to Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing to Israel, to be policed by Turkish and French military monitors to stop arms smuggling into Gaza.

Will they be more effective than the monitors in Lebanon who were supposed to keep Hezbollah from rearming?

The zone would nominally be controlled by the authority, the internationally recognised Government. Such a plan would allow the crossings to reopen for the first time since Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007.... It faces formidable obstacles.

Particularly Hamas.

Diplomats said yesterday that the Egyptian efforts were getting bogged down because of disagreements over how to secure the border. Hamas has said it would consider allowing observers at the border crossings with Egypt but opposes an international force. It also claimed yesterday that a delegation of three Hamas leaders had crossed the border into Egypt to join talks. Israel, however, is insisting on a robust international force to destroy smuggling tunnels under the border. Egypt, for its part, does not want international troops on its territory.

Then let its own forces close the tunnels down.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Blago Impeached

House impeaches Blagojevich - Chicago Breaking News reported In a historic vote, the Illinois House has impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich,

The Illinois Supreme Court has rejected Burris's case; will Reid seat him, given these two actions?

directing the Senate to put the state's 40th chief executive on trial with the goal of removing him from office. The vote by the House was 114-1

I wonder if the Senate vote will be that lopsided

with one member voting "present." It marks the first time in the state's 190-year history that a governor has been impeached, despite Illinois' longstanding reputation for political corruption. Rep. Milt Patterson (D-Chicago) was the lone vote against impeachment.

I wonder what Blago will appoint him to before the Senate convicts him.

The "present" vote was cast by Rep. Elga Jefferies (D-Chicago).

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Is this a civilized religion?

Pamela Geller showed some pictures of Muslims celebrating Ashura by self flagellation and by hurting their children.

These people do this to themselves and yet people object if the worst of the worst are waterboarded. At least it would wash some of the blood off.

Parents doing this to their own children????

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Palestinians boast of using civilians as human shields

Hamas - Fathi Hamad
by bivouac-id

Translation:
For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry
In which excel the women and all the people of this land:
The older people excel, the jihadists excel
And the children excel
Consequently, [the Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children
Older people and jihadists
Against the Zionist bombing machine
That is telling the Zionist enemy
We want death just as much as you desire life.

If they want death so much, why are they complaining when Israel provides it?

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

May God exterminate Hamas!

NY Daily News reported From her lips to God's ear: The fury of a bereaved Palestinian mother captures evil of Hamas in Gaza. A New York Times dispatch captured an excruciating moment that took place in a hospital morgue, where a mother had just found half of the body of her 17-year-old daughter. "May God exterminate Hamas!"

That is what the Jews are trying to do.

screamed the woman in crystal-clear understanding that the terrorist band's reckless, inhuman actions had brought death to her child.

Dems scrambling to avoid Burris spectacle

TheHill.com reported In a phone interview with The Hill, Burris said, “We're going to go up to the [Senate] door, and if we're turned away, then we'll document all of that and consult our lawyers.” But Burris added a bit of diplomacy, toning down the racial rhetoric he and his aides have employed recently. “Never in my whole political career have I brought up race,” Burris told The Hill.

Then why did The Hill report you wrer toning down the racial rhetoric you and your aids have employed recently.

“It is certainly not a factor here.”

It is a factor, or why would Harry Reid have recommended a white and an oriental, and said to avoid three blacks. He does not think a black could be elected in IL if he did not do as Obama did and get all other candidates kicked off the ballot before the election.

“There is some bristling at the member level that both sides are digging in too much and need to cool down,” one senior aide said. “Members are basically saying, ‘We owe it to ourselves to give us some leeway — we may not have the option to deny him a seat forever.’ ”

If Illinois gets off the stick and Impeaches him they may have another choice.

Another aide said distraction was more of a factor than any concern about the strength of Democratic leaders’ case against seating Burris.

He is going to be a distraction either way.

The party needs to focus on the economic stimulus plan, confirmation hearings, new committee and leadership assignments and a host of other concerns in the dwindling days before President-elect Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20. “We need this to go away, and the way to do that in the Senate is to make a deal,” the aide said.

It should be about doing the right thing. Whatever that is. Blago wants Burris because he knows Reid does not want him, and Read does not want him because Blago appointed him, and because he does not think Burris could win in 2010 (he has tried for several high offices and lost each time).

“That’s what Wednesday is all about.” The staffers said the tenor of the Burris-Reid meeting on Wednesday will depend on Burris’s actions on Tuesday. Some Democrats have become exasperated by Burris’s aggressive approach and repeated references to race.

Refil the popcorn bowl, this is getting more interesting.

The Left decides it is OK to be patriotic now

International Herald Tribune reported "People finally felt like our generation had reclaimed patriotism," said Haley Fagan, 24, a Berkeley paralegal who got stuck in a car trying to cross the street as the crowd surged. "It was a moment that we felt comfortable with it." After generations of finding their voice in dissidence, some Americans on the left wing are adjusting not only to a new postelection comfort with patriotic symbols,

That means they still do not understand patriotism. Patriotism is pride in one's country, regardless of who is in the White House. I salute the flag now, while George W Bush is in the White House, and I will continue to salute it after January 20 when Obama is in the White House.

I have agreed with many of the things GWB did, and disagreed with some (particularly recently, as he has been doing some stupid things to try to improve his "legacy". I am giving BO a chance, but I suspect I will disagree with him in many areas, and feel he is hurting the country. But I will still be proud of my country, and the Armed Forces that keep it safe.

but also to the political reality they represent. Believing in Obama after Inauguration Day will mean identifying with the machinery of U.S. power.

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